State changes rule on electronic voting machines

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, November 22, 2003

In an effort to prevent fraud, California's top election official Friday ordered all counties using electronic voting systems to provide voters with printed receipts by 2006.

"As the state progresses with new technology, all Californians must have confidence that every vote cast is a vote counted," said California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. "These new requirements will provide this confidence."

Shelley's decision could prompt other states to adopt similar rules as they update their balloting systems. That's because California has more than 10 percent of the nation's voters, and companies that sell the machines here likely will offer them elsewhere.

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As part of a series of directives issued Friday to county election officials, Shelley said that any county that purchased new touch-screen voting terminals must provide a "voter-verified paper audit trail," starting in July 2005. He also ordered four counties -- including Alameda and Santa Clara --

already using the high-tech systems to retrofit their machines with printers that provide paper receipts by July 2006. The requirement makes California the first state to require counties to retrofit existing machines.

Shelley stressed that the new rules were not adopted because of problems or flaws in the touch-screen systems, but because voters feel more confident having a piece of paper that records their vote.

"People understandably feel more confident when they can verify that their votes are being recorded as intended," Shelley said.

His directives were met by praise from some and criticism from others.

"By requiring a voter-verified paper trail, the secretary of state has taken a critical step toward preserving the integrity of the voting process in the wake of new technologies that change the ways in which we vote," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

But a coalition of civil rights, good government and disabled rights groups criticized the decision, saying that it would encourage counties to adopt cheaper paper ballot systems -- like the one used in San Francisco --

that they maintain are inferior to touch-screen machines.

"It would be a tremendous setback if the outcome of (Shelley's) decision were to push counties away from touch-screen voting machines to optical scan and other paper-based voting systems," said Jim Knox, executive director of California Common Cause. "Touch-screen voting machines offer many advantages that make them far superior to optical scan and other paper-based voting machines."

Supporters of the touch-screen systems say they are superior because they offer instant translations for voters whose primary language is not English and because the disabled can use them easily and without assistance.

They also say cases of voter fraud are unheard of with electronic systems,

but paper ballots can easily be lost or stolen.

"There have been a lot of unfounded fears that have spread about touch- screen systems," said Kathy Feng, of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles. "It's easier to steal an election with paper than anything else."

Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland estimated that adding a printer to its touch-screen voting machines increased the cost of the $3,200 machines by about $500, spokesman Alfie Charles said. That could be costly for cash- strapped counties such as Santa Clara and Riverside, which each have about 4, 000 terminals.